


Tissaia's Lovers

by brokenmemento



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Adult Content, Angst, Character Study, F/F, F/M, Falling In Love, Pining, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:33:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26535175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brokenmemento/pseuds/brokenmemento
Summary: Following the 5+1 format, a foray into the potential people that Tissaia has invited into her bed over the years and the one who never seems to quite make it there.
Relationships: Tissaia de Vries & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Tissaia de Vries/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Tissaia de vries/others
Comments: 8
Kudos: 90





	1. The First Three

**Author's Note:**

> *A short little diddy I've been sitting on for a while and I "rediscovered" it the other day. It wasn't finished (still isn't!) but that is a quick fix and I sort of liked what I had done? Hopefully, all of you will as well. You guys still remain the kindest/most excellent/talented that I have the privilege of being a part of. Thank you for all of your support across the months.
> 
> **Slight trigger warning for part one. I went with the general idea of the times and men's regard for women during the 1200s.

**One:**

She’s born into a world where women hold little value, destined to be wives and mothers, cooks or whores, and men care not of them except when they can be between their legs. It’s why discovering magic becomes all the sweeter, a way to get out of the rut her life would inevitably fall into. 

There is no Aretuza when she begins her foray into the science, the gift, and the art of magic. She is an apprentice in a cabin in the swamps and trees of Temeria. There is an old crone who teaches her the ways of herbs and alchemy, shows her how to weave spells with her voice and her hands. In the harsh landscape, she does her best to aid the people. They come to know her as the ‘beauty of the bog,’ who says little but does what she can to make life sustainable. It’s this word of mouth that finds the king’s envoy and has him standing on the doorstep one day, requesting her in the castle.

The name of the ruler is Cedric and he’s the fourth to reign the land. Tissaia is but seventeen when she meets him and is brought into his court. More worried with appearances than ruling, he busies himself with rewriting the image of Temeria and its people. He changes the coat of arms, works to pave his own path. On most nights, he beds his bride from Korvir who eventually bores him a son that will take over someday. 

On other nights, the ones where his appetite is not quenched from the skin he claims as his own, he makes his way to Tissaia’s chambers. He bids her to undress while he sits and watches, casual and almost aloof. He never makes a comment, never tells her what he thinks. 

He takes her in a number of ways that lack any sort of grace. Often, her face is pressed into walls or on top of tables. His only gentleness arrives when he says things into her ear that sends her chaos swirling when he feels her hesitation or lack of excitement.

“Would you deny your king?” he whispers with a hand on her neck and another at her lower back. He works himself into her and she swears to never make a singular noise. 

He takes what he needs, looking sated, and leaves Tissaia often feeling raw. It’s not what one imagines as their crossing the barrier into a life of lovers, but she somehow justifies it to herself because he does listen to her advisement and the acts don’t happen often. 

There’s the unspoken permission, the understanding that this is the life of a mage in a court. She’s heard stories from other kingdoms, of how the women are treated as common whores and nothing more. Their magic is ignored and their existence hollowed. At least Cedric has the decency to spend most of his time inside of his wife, leaving Tissaia to her own studies or traversing the Continent to learn greater depth to her magic.

But on those nights when he comes to her, she lays the plank work for her future. She will not be fucked into submission, not be pressed under and against any and all rulers of Temeria until she dies. Which, knowing the life of a sorceress, could be a long time. Instead, she closes her eyes against the feel of him and dreams of a different world.

One where she is in charge always, one where she has the utmost control. Never again will she do the bidding of another unless she absolutely wishes to. Someday, she will be her own woman. Her body will belong to her, given to those who earn it, whom she feels are worthy of raking their hands across her flesh. Of coming to rest between her thighs.

It takes three years, but her saving grace comes. A new school has been built on the island of Thanedd, a haven for women who show promise in the ways of spells. As she stands beside Cedric’s throne, she tries not to feel her heart jump out of her chest. 

She feels his wary look at the envoy asking for her, turns her pleading blue eyes toward him, and silently begs him to let her go. 

His “yes” is the beginning of her new life. The one where she makes the rules. 

When she leaves, she’s cognizant that even though her time in Temeria hasn’t always been the most emotionally rewarding, she is leaving with one valuable lesson. In a world where performance is expected, one is likely to do better when it is for oneself.

**Two:**

She’s been at Aretuza a year when she meets a handsome magistrate at the meeting of the kingdoms. She’s taken on the role of conducting a class in herbalism, spending most of her days in the greenhouse. Thankfully, she has spent her time in a court and will no longer be required to take them to her bed.

The magistrate, however, is deferring in a way Cedric had rarely been. He makes sure her goblet is always full, dares not to touch her without explicit permission, asks her to dance, and does well with his footwork as they spin around the room. This skill will perhaps manifest itself in other ways, so she invites him to her quarters later.

When he enters, he is amusingly shy and doesn’t move to overtake her. She quirks her lips with delight and thinks that she will enjoy this one very much. With his dark features and hidden musculature, Tissaia is sure that he will feel good underneath her. This is because she aims to take absolute control.

She commands him to remove her clothing as she works at his, runs her hands along the taut muscles of his stomach, and then shoves him onto her bed. He looks nonplussed, probably not used to a woman exacting so much force to get what she wants.

But Tissaia needs this, needs him to just be strength between her thighs while she works herself into oblivion on him. Straddling his hips, she looks down at him with a cocked eyebrow. When she grabs the length of him, she watches delightfully as his eyes flutter shut.

“This could be quite enjoyable if you listen carefully and stay absolutely quiet. If for any reason you make a noise or say a word, I will remove myself from you and this will be over,” she tells him. Wonderfully, he says nothing at all.

As they come together, the memories of Cedric flash inside of her mind. Of how she had little say and zero authority in the situation the bulk of the time. But now, oh now. She’s finally her own woman and takes less ordering than she used to. True enough, they’re in the early stages of forming a group called The Brotherhood of Sorcerers and she’s sure the primary voices will be those from the twin Ban Ard, but she will have a _say_. Someday, she might even rise in the ranks of Aretuza even more and be able to run the school completely.

While a ways off, the idea works itself from her brain to her heart to her thighs. She lets it create the slick between them, gets herself off on the idea of being the most powerful mage on the Continent. When she rolls off of him spent, he lays beside her with his chest heaving and a palm resting against his beating heart.

Taking only a few scant moments to gather herself, she rises from the sheets and smells of the aroma of them wafting through her room. As soon as he leaves, she will need to remedy this with powerful herbs to dissipate the smell. 

On a chair across from the foot of her bed, she shrugs on a coverlet, sheer silk that still shows the curve of her breasts and perk of her nipples. She ties the sash at her waist and walks over to the tray of cheese and fruit. A pitcher sits atop it as well and she pours herself a glass of wine and flicks her wrist toward the door.

“That will be all,” she says as she takes a sip and grabs his doublet and trousers, throwing them atop his incredulous face. 

He splutters a bit and rises from lying down against her sheets. She slants her head the side, looking between his legs at his still apparent arousal, a reminder that she took what she wanted and left him unsatisfied. A wonderful nudge works its way inside her chest and she crosses an arm to rest underneath the other, holding her glass to her lips.

“You’re still here.”

“I just...well, I was wondering...perhaps…”

The rendering of him to be completely incapable of speech is both laughable and annoying at the same time. Some of it could possibly be on the predicament between his legs but Tissaia is in no mood to fix that at all. 

“Brevity is the soul of wit,” Tissaia sighs heavily, already tired of being accommodating. Magistrate or not, this man should have already been out the second she climbed off of him.

“But I should like to see you again?” he sounds hopeful and Tissaia almost feels sorry for the poor lad. When he views the look on her face, he withers in more ways than one. 

“Look, it’s nothing personal,” Tissaia tries at subterfuge. She has no idea why when she has been afforded little of it throughout her life. It’s the first time she adopts the words that will become her motto for much of life. “Sometimes a flower is just a flower and the best thing it can do is die.”

In the end, he leaves with a handful of clothing and a wounded pull of the features on his face. She stands a long time after, tasting the tart liquid in her cup. It’s the first time she has lain with someone with her demands firmly in place. With her solely doing the taking. 

She’d like to not revel in it but it feels too damn good.

**Three:**

She is the first attempt at an itch that develops shortly after she’s rescued Yennefer from the pigpen. And, to her credit, she does a marvelous job at making Tissaia shift her focus from wondering what the naked body of one female looks like and replacing it with another. 

When Yennefer appears at the banquet only to leave on the wrong king’s arm, Tissaia is furious and heartbroken at the same time. She knows there will be a dozen sets of eyes on her at the next conclave meeting, that she will have to _explain_ what the hell just happened and why she can’t keep her girls in line.

So when a pretty young thing lingers a little too long, laughs a little too heartily at something she’s said, she invites her to her bed even though she’s never touched another female’s body except her own. The wiry quality of her nerves is conquered by the angry beat between her legs and she dismisses the fear in favor of a chance at getting off. The woman does as she’s told, follows Tissaia a beat after her own exit. Once they turn a corner, Tissaia takes her hand and portals them into her room.

She’s picked this one for many reasons, most too concealed to admit. Tissaia lets her fingers be bold, runs them through the deep chestnut locks of the woman, and stares into her very wrong colored brown eyes. She does not admit to herself that she dreams of them as being the hue of lavender, of a deeper plum when they alight on fire.

The woman’s breasts are ample, hanging beautifully against her dark complexion. Tissaia runs her jittery fingers over them and tries to pass off the shaking as eager confidence. When they kiss, she tastes of wine and not enough history, being essentially what she is- a stranger. It’s a lot to push past but when Tissaia is touched for the first time, her maroon dress lifted and a palm connecting, she can’t help but grind down on it and rest her head against the woman’s shoulder.

During the whole thing, she keeps whispering encouragement and softness that Tissaia doesn’t deserve for using someone to forget another. But the woman seems to understand that Tissaia has lost something and needs to be consoled about it by the movement of someone’s fingers. Thankfully, she never asks and takes her silent discernment to its peak. She’s skilled with her hands and Tissaia tips into oblivion blind and aching.

Unlike her experiences with men, Tissaia lets the woman lay her down on the sheets, to take her clothing off of her bit by bit. When she presses her bare breasts against Tissaia, she tries not to compare the very real ones in front of her with ones in her imagination. Nothing will ever live up to what she’s built inside of her mind, will never rival the thing she will never be able to obtain.

The woman is giving, compassionate, and everything else that Tissaia has rarely found in a lover. She touches Tissaia with tender caresses, tells her things like she’s beautiful, and that she is made of awe, and when Tissaia comes a second time, she somehow has tears in her eyes and lets them fall out of the corners of them.

They’re wiped away gently and to anyone else, their heart would swell beyond the ability to keep the emotion contained. Tissaia knows that her lover of the night thinks that the wetness on her cheeks is because of what she’s given to her, a small gift, but it’s for the woman who has left on someone else’s arm.

Not intending to let the kindness of the woman go for naught, Tissaia works to get a hold on herself and to not be embarrassed by her weakness in the arms of the first woman she takes into her private life. Working to flip her over, Tissaia comes to rest atop her. 

When she leans down to place their lips together once more, she tries not to feel the dull ache in her heart. She aims to try a different way of living, one that isn’t categorized by a shameful need for one of her now former students to be inside of her arms.

It’s messy work for a first time, her competence at knowing exactly how to go about doing what she’s invited into her room not exactly the best.

Tissaia lets herself feel a beat of satisfaction when the woman tips over the edge. She closes her eyes against the woman’s chest, feels the steady rise and fall of it. Her heart grows cold soon after.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Okay, this one got away from me a bit as far as *the* scene goes. I feel like it is not my usual type of writing but I wanted to have them come together (pun not intended, lol) a different way than I have written them all of the other times. Hopefully, it isn't too risque.

**Four:**

She should have never gone to Rinde. It was a disaster and a mistake that she has paid for that dearly every waking hour of both day and night. A week has passed since the events and she can still feel the static charge of energy that had been almost suffocating in that too large room that became too small with both she and Yennefer inside of it. 

Her hand is poised over parchment, but she’s done little writing. Her thoughts are a scattered jumble and the heat between her legs has become almost unbearable. While she would have liked nothing more than to give herself some much needed relief that night as she’d portaled back to her bedroom, she refrained from touching herself.

An orgasm out of anger would do little to appease her restlessness. 

The battle is lost, she knows. She’s gone seven agonizing days reliving the events with Yennefer and she’s done enough mental flagellation to last a lifetime over what she has said and done. There is no fixing the mess that’s been made between the two of them, their hearts even farther apart now than their bodies. Tissaia aches in a number of places.

Sighing heavily, she throws the quill across the room. Standing, she presses her palms against the wood grain of her desk until they turn white. Her breathing is erratic and she’s got to find a way to calm the simmering chaos inside her own body. The idea she arrives at is not the best way of dealing, but it will have to do.

There’s a lovely little bathhouse in Gors Velen that she sometimes visits when she’s feeling untethered to her normal, so she opens a link to there before she can stop herself with too much thinking. 

Inside, the steam from the sauna clings to her pores and she tries to sweat out the jaunting feelings. It works fairly well until she sees a woman of about her age (before she slowed down on aging for good) appraising the curves and bends of her body. While she hadn’t intended on going back to this particular desire for the flesh of a female, Yennefer has put her on edge and quite frankly, she needs someone to ring it out of her. 

As she stands, she makes a jerking motion with her head. A silent _follow me_. The inn next door is not exactly filled with the cream of the crop as far as people go, often more closely likening a brothel instead of a reputable establishment. 

Tissaia cares not as the woman rounds the corner and is met by the curious look the now Rectoress has adopted across her visage. Standing closer now, it’s easy to see that this woman isn’t exactly what she’s needing and she doesn’t even want to begin to do more than casually wonder if she’s not a lady of the inn next door.

But Tissaia has the proclivity to burn the meeting with Yennefer out of her mind and this blonde-haired, blue-eyed nymph of a lady is going to have to provide that. 

It seems like a waste to get dressed only to take them off again and seemingly anticipating this, the inn has provided a discreet walkway between the two, even though many must use it in the course of a day. 

The owners know Tissaia well enough now, but she’s never been one to venture down the hall into the inn. When she motions unassumingly their direction, she thinks she spots a flicker of surprise on the owner’s face before it is masked and a nod is sent her way. 

When they arrive in a room, Tissaia has to work diligently to make the woman not pry. 

“So tell me a little about yourself,” the woman tries but Tissaia pushes a finger against her lips. 

“That’s not really what this is about,” Tissaia shakes her head and begins to work at the knot of the woman’s towel. When it drops, she lets out a pleased hum. “Now, I plan on us having a lovely time tonight, and talking about ourselves will only get into the way.”

“But when I...I’m fairly vocal,” she looks worried.

“If you must, then fine,” Tissaia acquiesces. 

“And is there something you would like to call me since we are forgoing formalities here?”

“Yennefer,” escapes from Tissaia’s mouth without absolutely any thought at all.

And really, she’s all wrong. She’s slight and rounder, the bleach of her hair a stark contrast to the raven strands of the woman she’s asked her companion tonight to go by the name of. The lack of violet eyes were always going to be somewhat of a nonstarter as far as the Yennefer fantasy goes, no one else on the entirety of earth possessing the same characteristic. Yennefer is the one in 400 million.

“Okay,” the woman nods. “So your girl, is she loud in bed or quiet? Does she do certain things to you that you like or do you have something she’s particularly good at that you enjoy? Let me be her for tonight.”

A burst of laughter threatens against Tissaia’s mouth but she stops it from rising. The questions have gotten her incredibly wet and she bites her lip at the thought of taking Yennefer like she’s about to do this woman, stripping her of that black lace dress and her blood red lipstick.

“I don’t know,” Tissaia admits. “I’ve never been with her, but I’ve wanted to for as long as I can remember.”

“Do I remind you of her?”

“Not even close,” Tissaia smiles but then works to amend. “She has darker features and is a little bit taller.”

“Well, then. I won’t say anything and you can close your eyes and pretend I’m her.”

And this is how Tissaia learns to love the grace of women. Unlike men, there is a nurturing aspect to them, one which Tissaia has felt herself lack much of her life. 

But she closes her eyes, tries to imagine the way she would treat Yennefer’s body underneath and above her own. Wonderfully, she comes like this, with Yennefer’s name on her lips and her face on the backs of her lids.

**Five:**

There’s one more before she decides to swear off anyone else. She takes a fellow mage to bed after his return trip from Novigrad knowing that it’s a futile search for what she’s craving. It’s been years since Rinde and nothing has lessened it at all.

He’s charming and suave and definitely not Vilgefortz, whom everyone thinks has robbed her of her rigidness by thawing her between her thighs. If she were the type of woman who hated wagging tongues, she’d be more open about her much talked about private life. But flapping jaws only aid the cause of raucous people and Tissaia is decidedly not one of those. 

The note is sent to his room as he stays overnight in Aretuza. When she receives the return agreement, she makes her way to his quarters. What she’s about to do is a little closer to home, an acquaintance but still a mage of good standing, so she takes extra precautions on the way. 

His youth precedes him and he’s willing and game to do pretty much anything. For a second, she thinks about doing an enchantment to make him have purple eyes and even darker hair. She resists the urge and lets him take her on against the small desk in the room. 

Her hands claw at the surface, knocking papers and various detritus to the ground as she gasps against him. It’s _nice_ but not satisfying, not in the mind-blowing way that she yearns for. 

She doesn’t let him finish her over an object she spends a ghastly amount of time at. A bed is a luxury she doesn’t want tonight either, so she drags him by the collar of his shirt to the wall and then turns around so she doesn’t have to look at his face (albeit a handsome one). 

By the time it’s over and done, she’s managed to reach her final conclusion too, a rarity with most of the men who have coupled with her. It’s an indented type of feeling she’s left with in the end. 

Uncharacteristically, she accepts the invitation to stay afterward for a nightcap. He’s amiable and well traveled, so she listens as he discusses his adventures in both the north and south. They’re standing by the large bay window overlooking the cliffs in the near distance of the island and when he looks at her for a little longer than necessary, she shifts uncomfortably.

“How does someone such as yourself not have a partner to share your life with? You’re beautiful, mysterious, exciting behind closed doors. I would think your attentions more than filled,” he compliments. 

Gripping the goblet tighter, she casts a glance up to him. “The life of a mage is precarious at best and dangerous at worst. There is little planting of roots for long enough to find this so-called ‘attention’.” 

“And yet here you stand, a Rectoress at one of the best schools on the Continent. You have the respect of all the kingdoms, even if some don’t agree with your unwavering stance on staying neutral even in difficult times. They all seem to be in agreement as well: that you’re the most powerful sorceress walking the earth right now.”

“The world is vast and hardly known well enough to make that assumption. My duties lie here at the school which has a way of dimming one’s arrogance over supposed things such as rank or status. I’ve carved out the life I lead by my own hand. But it seems as I was whittling away, someone to spend my life with was out of the equation,” she sighs, looking out the window. 

And who is she right now? She’d let this man take her against a wall in order to avoid looking in his eyes and now she’s spilling out things to him she’s never spoken to another soul. 

“Your eyes say otherwise,” he says. “You’ve lost someone whom you loved deeply.”

“We’ve all done so,” Tissaia waves off and puts a bit of space between them. The uncomfortable creep of their conversation starts to work it’s way inside her veins and she feels the heat amplify in the room. “Look, this has been…” Lovely? That’s so far off the mark, she doesn’t even finish it. Confusing, momentarily rewarding, completely reckless are better fits. “I really must be going.”

Making her way to the door, she stops when his voice calls out to her. “Do me a favor, rectoress? If at all possible, find that love of your life. Speaking from experience, it will make a harder person out of you.”

Without a word, she leaves and slips into the night. The words she left unsaid dangle at the tip of her tongue: _you can’t make someone love you if they’ve overtaken your heart but you remain absent in theirs._

**The One:**

It seems rather dour to say that she’s put years of space between other people and her body, but she’s done so. Now, it only knows the steadiness of her own hands and the anguish of her own heart. 

Tissaia isn’t sure what’s harder—having Yennefer be around more and pretend it doesn’t mean the world to her or have her halfway across the continent and years spaced out between them. 

It’s a period of adjustment that Tissaia has to learn again. She’s not asked Yennefer to come to Aretuza more than she always has. In fact, she lets her do as she pleases after the war dies down. It seems unfair to ask her of anything greater than what she’s already done. 

They talk little about the past, about old hurts and somewhat recent ones. Tissaia never breeches the subject of who or where Yennefer finds her focus and she tries to ignore her direct inquiries into the nature of Tissaia’s time. And how she spends it.

Finally, she reaches her limit one evening after Yennefer has tried to get a rise out of her. Again. 

“Is there a reason for all of these rather candid questions as you try to manipulate me into telling you about things I wish not to discuss?” Tissaia says rather sharply. She pulls back when Yennefer’s face goes contemplative. 

“He doesn’t talk to me the way you do, you know,” Yennefer answers nonchalantly. 

“Geralt is of little concern to me, ever,” Tissaia lies.

Sort of. 

The only time he crosses her mind is when it’s clear Yennefer has just come from his presence, somehow a moth in a web caught between the two of them. Too often, Tissaia is able to pick up on Yennefer’s chaotic emotions when she portals in or walks through the door. Tonight is no different. 

“He tied us together using the power of a djinn,” Yennefer blurts and Tissaia feels her breath leave her body. 

She stops her ruse of distracted listening and comes to sit in front of Yennefer, pulling up a chair near to her bent knees. Not stopping to worry about the touch she’s let land on Yennefer's knee, she looks deeply into her purple eyes. 

“When?” she says with a shake of her head. 

“Oh, many years ago. First, I was looking for a way to restore my womb but that proved as fruitless as Philippa’s searching to grow back the tissue of her eyes,” Yennefer sighs. 

Tissaia tries not to let the mention of the other sorceress create peevishness. She’s never met a more self-serving individual in all of her life. The woman refused the conclave meeting to discuss Sodden and had the audacity to send her regard after fourteen mage’s names were erected on a stone of remembrance. 

“Next came my search for a way to free the djinn, to untie the bindings that keep Geralt and I enmeshed. I need to know if my feelings toward him are true or purely coincidental,” Yennefer continues. 

“I see,” Tissaia says slowly. 

“But you don’t,” Yennefer shakes her head. “And you never have. You’ve taken my harshness and general aloof attitude as an affront to you. Yet in all of my life, before the djinn, the only person I could remember loving was you.”

She reaches out to take Tissaia’s hands in her own, plays with the small and round fingers that she finds. It’s these quiet moments that have made Tissaia’s heart grow for her beyond measure, of when she finds Yennefer at her most beautiful. It’s why she’s been lost inside herself ever since Yennefer hopped in that cart she’d rented in Vengerberg. 

“I’m split, Tissaia. The crux of my existence, the continual beat of my heart, has ever been for the two of you. Until I can find the djinn to free me, I cannot trust any feelings I have toward Geralt. They are not my own unless I have done so. But with you...I’m unchained.”

And is this really happening? Is Yennefer actually leaning forward to kiss her after years of drought? Is she reaching out to curl her fingers around Tissaia’s hip and another to cup her face as she deepens the kiss to a level Tissaia has only experienced in her dreams?

She wrenches away and notices the smear of lipstick gone from Yennefer. Errantly, she reaches to her own and wonders if she’s transferred it against her mouth.

“What you’re saying and what you’re planning on doing…”

“Is of no worry right now. Tissaia, I’ve dreamed of you for a thousand nights on end, multiplying greatly since we both survived at Sodden. You’re my one constant in a lifetime of uncertainty. I would like to be with you tonight if you’ll have me. I need the sureness of you inside my hands,” Yennefer breathes and traces along Tissaia’s jaw. 

“You’re confused and unsure,” Tissaia tries to dismiss. 

“No,” Yennefer grabs her chin. “My heart has always known you. Now my body is asking to.”

And with that, Tissaia loses her will to battle. She’s created Yennefer out of so many other people, closed her eyes against other lovers in hopes they would somehow feel like the woman in front of her, asking to learn her flesh. 

When she stands and drops her dress, leaving Yennefer to look up at her, she tries not to swoon. The woman’s lips part in expectancy, in pure and unfiltered anticipation. Suddenly, fevered and actual dreams seem of little preparation for the actuality about to occur. 

“Eight decades we’ve known one another and you still manage to surprise me,” Yennefer shakes her head in awe. Her eyes dance in that glow of the room. Tissaia wants her to take her apart and leave them both to never be the same. 

When they discover Tissaia, wrecked and writhing, they’ll note that she’s lived through three phases of her life: the one before Yennefer, the one during Yennefer, the one that will have to continue living as completely rearranged by the knowledge of what Yennefer looks like when a climax seizes her body, the sounds she makes in the same divots of time—the before, during, after. 

Yennefer drops the belt cinched around her waist first, the object hitting the stone floor with a muted thump. Next comes the leather tunic-like piece wrapped tightly against her slender form, unhooking the buttons with a flair completely unnecessary. 

But this is Yennefer after all and Tissaia supposes she’s been putting on this show for decades. That she’s so used to it now, the seduction she exudes, that it’s second nature to how she takes someone eventually against her body. 

The white undershirt is parted at the collar, revealing the swell of her breasts but she focuses on an agonizingly slow pace of removing each of her ten fingers from the set of black gloves almost reaching her elbows. Yennefer never loses eye contact with Tissaia while she does this, flinging them unceremoniously behind her with a quirk of her lips when she’s done. 

“At this rate, I’m likely to be gray by the time you’re done,” Tissaia mutters, crosses her arms across the peaked buds on her chest. She stands with a hip jutted, a lot more sass exuding that she should probably have when awaiting what she wants. 

Yennefer lifts the white shirt and throws it too, leaving her in only her tight leather pants and thigh-high boots. She shrugs. “If it’s hurry that you feel, I suppose we could skip the rest of…”

Tissaia’s patience cleaves and she strides forward to cup Yennefer between her legs. She’s sure the experience is a bit muffled like hers, the feel against her hand that of thick material and little revelation in the way that Yennefer’s body feels, but she watches the woman’s eyes close just the same. 

And really, while they’re at it, her perfect breasts are right there almost eye level with Tissaia’s face so she decides to remedy this and connects her lips against them too. 

“Have you...uh, ever been with a woman?” Yennefer’s voice croaks out and all Tissaia can think is how this woman has the gall to inquire about something that shouldn’t matter when she’s got her mouth against her. 

Hoping that it isn’t a comment on her performance but rather Yennefer’s preconceived idea that she is a prude by nature, Tissaia decides if ever there was a time to let go of decorum and tact, this is the person to lose it for. She removes her mouth from Yennefer and moves to grip her hair. 

“I suppose you’ve given me ample time to learn, since I’ve been inviting women into my bed here and there for close to eighty years,” Tissaia says in her characteristic calm. 

She watches this register with Yennefer and her face go dark. Never would she think the purple eyes of the woman could almost glow, but they seem to now. And is this what Yennefer’s countless lovers see? Or has Tissaia managed to coax out a fire within her that has been dormant?

“When…”

“The meeting of the kingdoms was the first,” Tissaia flits her eyes to her hand buried in Yennefer’s hair. “Her hair was a bit lighter, her eyes a bit darker. But for the first night in what would become a futile search, I tried to discover something I’d denied myself for years.”

Yennefer’s gaze is incessant, unflickering, but she works at the twine on her leather breeches and parts them as wide as she can without pulling them down. _Fine_ , Tissaia decides and glances down to see what she’s done. 

There’s the shadow of a trail down further, of a path awaiting Tissaia to pick a part of her own body to trace it with. This adds to the slickness between her own and she casts her eyes up as she takes a closer step in. 

It’s time now, so long starved for this touch that’s waiting to happen. So Tissaia reaches out, slides her fingers down the flat plane of Yennefer’s stomach into what waits below. 

When her fingers go from drag to glide, finding it blissfully hard to gain purchase against what’s at her tips, Tissaia can’t help but let out the desperate little moan that worms it’s way out instead of being bitten back. 

“I took another after Rinde, in a bathhouse at Gors Velen. I went there to find someone to take my mind off of things and she looked a little too long to be only friendly,” Tissaia whispers, never removing her right hand from Yennefer but using her left to trail up to curl her fingers lightly against her throat. 

“Tissaia…”

“Should you like to hear a little secret?” she stops her ministrations and leans into Yennefer’s ear, already knowing her desire. “That night? She let me call her by your name.”

Tissaia is lifted so quickly and carried through the air that she barely processes what’s happening until Yennefer moves her to the bed and pulls her down on top of her, knees on each side of her leather pants. 

She shoves them down a little bit, not enough to matter but still enough to create friction and keep Tissaia’s hand wedged tight against her. Tissaia can feel the slick leather of Yennefer’s boots that are _still on_ with her toes. 

Tissaia hovers then, a hand extended by Yennefer’s head and the other hand going back to where it was tucked once before. Before she can reach her previous destination, she’s caught by the wrist and Yennefer is fixing her with a look. 

Yennefer could say something flowery, could maybe let Tissaia feel an ounce of something other than white-hot heat everywhere, could let her deal with the cloaked feelings inside of her heart. 

But this is Yennefer, Tissaia reminds herself. The same vexing wildfire that has only mouthed something approaching heartfelt all but once before tonight. That field in Sodden has nothing on this and perhaps that’s why Tissaia can’t find it in herself to care when she hears Yennefer’s words.

“I want you to take me apart,” is the sort of gruff command, Yennefer biting her lip and arching her back all while simultaneously rutting her hips up into Tissaia’s palm. 

Tissaia steels herself, grits her teeth with a sense of determination. This will not be soft tonight. This will not be the culmination of tooth decaying thoughts of comfort and serenity and love. 

Even though the latter is most definitely in the room, is practically dripping from Tissaia’s heart like Yennefer is onto her hand as she works it back to its spot, it has little place here. 

It will be rough. It will be loud. It will be tinder igniting into billowing flame. It’s these things Tissaia knows as she sheathes her fingers to the hilt. 

Because Yennefer needs Tissaia this way to forget she’s bound to a man through a djinn out of no doing of her own. Because Tissaia needs this just as badly, has been working herself into self-induced nothingness with a last withering thought before the crest of how nothing will ever measure up to the level of Yennefer of Vengerberg.

How absolutely no one will. 

And while tonight may be the singular time of them coming together, Yennefer wandering off again to her life she’s created away from Aretuza, Tissaia surmises the opposite will actually happen. 

She will have time to be tender and endearing. Perhaps even get to say the frustratingly potent and stalling phrase she’s been working herself up for years to say to the woman in her hands. 

Like paper ripping from the pages of a book, Tissaia’s name is catapulted back for her ears to hear, in the exact cadence she’s been imagining for so incredibly long. She’s reverent of it, grateful too. It’s awe and lightning bottled only to crack to life. 

She’s rolled then, Yennefer hovering after a while. The woman’s boots make a splat onto the blocks of the floor and she peels away the last vestiges of her clothing leaving her blissfully bare. 

“Now it is your turn to come apart,” Yennefer announces almost like a herald. 

_I’ve never been whole_ , Tissaia wants to say. Instead, she lets the erupting sounds express it for her. 

She’s had a lot of wrong people in her bed. It’s time to finally let the right one in.

The thought is indulgent. Tissaia smiles, loses herself in the whirlpool of Yennefer. In some sort of destiny she’s been working to create for far too long.


End file.
